walking under ladders // texas & tune.

[ retro gm ] angel lí ✨
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walking under ladders // texas & tune. Jun 27, 2022 17:07:37 GMT -5

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Post by [ retro gm ] angel lí ✨ on Jun 27, 2022 17:07:37 GMT -5

"I'm checking the perimeter," she announces to Carly and Andrew, already growing itchy with boredom. Her pack is stuffed full of supplies and the handle of her weapon - now switched to the lighter, more appropriate saber - rests sturdy in her palm. Truth is she thinks if she has to be stuck inside any longer with Andrew Priest she might kill him herself - or worse.

Though Tune's prone to take risks, she really didn't feel like dealing with consequences of that potential reality. Not this early in the game, anyway.

Plus she wasn't about to cost herself a good ally in the process. Andrew might be aloof, but he's got the brawn to back up herself and Carly. She's still shaken from this morning, her wounds stitched up yet no less painful than they were on creation - dead boy's head rolling, rolling, rolling. Air - she needs air.

"I'll yell if I see anyone - 'kay?"

She doesn't wait for a response.

One quick leap from a tabletop and she's through the window Andrew had smashed in, feet landing swiftly on the ground. Tune's never seen so much green in her life - accustomed to the permanently dreary palette of Twelve: grey, brown, a sprinkle of yellowed grass in overgrown springtime meadows if you were lucky. The air is heavy, but fresh. No smoke, fumes, taint from mining truck gasoline. Breathe in, out - she closes her eyes, just for a moment, allowing herself this small pleasure.

And then it is over, the gravity of where she is resting softlyon her shoulders. Tune opens her eyes, grits her teeth, and sets off around the building with a frown and quiet, cautious steps.

"There's no scraps left," she says aloud to nobody in particular, acutely aware of the potential for stragglers to be hiding around corners or beneath trap doors. "And I ain't afraid of stabbing a bitch!"

It sounded much braver in her head than it does out loud. Quieter, muttering - "I've done it twice already today."

table by griffin

“and men said that the blood of the stars flowed in her veins.”

pogue
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Is she trying to interrupt our henna session?

walking under ladders // texas & tune. Jun 29, 2022 11:31:56 GMT -5

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Post by pogue on Jun 29, 2022 11:31:56 GMT -5

T E X

There's red that seeps from his wounds as he stumbles out of Tavern, roses dripping petals down his back and into the grass as he stumbles forwards into the fields. His own pain is met with the brightness of a world so foreign, the shadows of the tavern clinging to his skin for as long as they can before they give way to the sun. At first his vision blurs in response to the sudden shift out of the darkness, palm held above his eyes at a desperate attempt to help his gaze adjust. It's futile, the way he stumbles forward and pain shoots out from the source with every step through the fields, but when he finally can see again he can't help but stop in his tracks and let the world he'd been thrown into, the coffin, wash over him.

Every single thing around him blooms with freshness, colors, life. A stark contrast to the skies of Twelve, so ridden with smog that to breathe them felt like stepping off the cliff to an early death.

It's almost feels like a mockery, to die in a place as beautiful as this. Maybe the's the point.

He makes it to the outskirts of the cornucopia before the pain overwhelms him, calloused fingers practically carving into the bark of the nearest tree as he stops, catching breaths that seem to burn and curl inside of dying lungs. It's there that time loses all of its focus, feeling the waves of pain threaten to drown him. He hadn't seen where his allies had fled to, had only watched the blood and the bodies pile up and heard the cannons ring in the sky before he'd made it out.

"There's no scraps left,"

He hears the voice before he sees his district partner from between the trees, making her way around the outskirts of the tavern with a look that could kill. "And I ain't afraid of stabbing a bitch!"

"Yeah, I knew that already." He blurts out, more of a pained groan than anything.

Silence was his greatest weapon and, just like that, he'd thrown it away in a heartbeat. He blames the blood loss or the shock or simply his own stupidity for the way his voice cuts through the trees and the shadows and out into the dead space between him and his district partner, catching a breath in his chest and holding it as he steps forwards towards her. Instinct only kicks in when he spots the blood against her sword, mirroring the gash on his back and dripping crimson into the earth below.

He clutches his own weapon in response, feeling the handle of the sickle press into his palms and gasping at the way the wound on his back fires off a new round of pain in response.

Now he stands at a crossroads a mere ten feet away from the only piece of home left in here, not far enough to run and not close enough to do much damage if she decided to close the gap and finish him off. Friend and foe tear at withering heartstrings when he finally speaks again, a stumbling breath in between the pain.

"Twelve still mean anything between us?" He asks like it ever did in the first place, like it wasn't just a purgatory before they ended up here. In the face of his own death he cracks a grin, a rare step away from the stoicism he'd laced into his skin in the Training Center.

"...or am I just another bitch to stab?"

Last Edit: Jun 29, 2022 11:38:34 GMT -5 by pogue

[ retro gm ] angel lí ✨
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walking under ladders // texas & tune. Jun 30, 2022 2:25:31 GMT -5

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Post by [ retro gm ] angel lí ✨ on Jun 30, 2022 2:25:31 GMT -5

Tune swivels at the sound of a voice, startled by it. Truth be told she had thought herself alone, words of bravado just for show - to convince herself she was much braver than she was. So when the stranger makes themselves known she gasps, stumbles back a step, thrusts Andrew's sword no longer than her own arm in front of her wildly.

But it's-

"Tex!" his name is a yelp from her throat. Half-relieved, half-baffled, she groans quietly and lowers the saber - still keeping it close to her side. He's cut-up and bleeding, worse for wear, and Tune is thankful that her own bandages wrapped by Carly earlier that day are hidden beneath the greens and greys of her cloak.

The girl from Twelve wants to smile at this familiar, punch his shoulder softly like she would one of the boys back home. And she almost does, a flicker of joy withering back to a frown like a flame on a dwindling log fire. But then it hits her - she, him, where they are. Her sword, his blood. His sickle, her aching wounds.

Almost -- but not, that night on the twelfth floor eons ago just a memory.

"'Course it does," her heart is heavy, as are her words. For now, she thinks - a silent, solemn knowing.

"I'm not gonna-" and she cranes her head to look behind them, the tavern door still shut tight, "-hurt you man," eyes back to her district partner. "You look beat up enough as it is."

Her bottom lip catches between her teeth, chewing unsurely. Anxiety gnaws - she should run. She should stab him, as she'd promised to empty air moment ago when she thought no-one listening. Finish him off here and now. Yell for her allies, chase him away. But damn it, she can't. He's right. District Twelve does still mean something between them, to her.

He's home. And hell, does she miss home right about now.

"Just keep your voice down, 'kay? Carly's on a rampage today."

table by griffin

Last Edit: Jun 30, 2022 2:25:46 GMT -5 by [ retro gm ] angel lí ✨

“and men said that the blood of the stars flowed in her veins.”

pogue
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1,811 POSTS

Pronouns: He/Him
last seen Apr 16, 2024 18:41:45 GMT -5

Is she trying to interrupt our henna session?

walking under ladders // texas & tune. Jun 30, 2022 18:06:10 GMT -5

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Post by pogue on Jun 30, 2022 18:06:10 GMT -5

T E X

For a single moment, both somber and silent, the two of them exist only as shattered mirrors in an arena of glass, pulling pieces of themselves off of their forms just to stare at their own reflections, what's left of Twelve running through the cracks that run across their skin.

Tune's promise not to hurt him is delivered in segments laced with hesitation, divided up into the before and after of recognizing her district partner and acknowledging the promises she made to her allies. Tex follows her gaze towards the tavern and back, reading between the lines they're forced to drawn in the sand and grimacing. He knows the safety he's found and the trust that's followed only exists for a limited time, that if he were to meet her in a day or two the sword laced between her fingers would find a home in his chest, peel apart flesh and muscle alike with only a cannon in its wake.

But for now, she's- their, home.
All that's left of it, all that's left of them.

"I think we're both a little worse for wear." He mutters, and it's as if his body sends a shrill scream of agreement out into his muscles. He gasps, a shark intake of breath caught in between his lungs and his eyes snapping shut for a moment. Something crimson arcs down his back, burning all the way down, a new sheet of red plastered against tissue paper skin. "How very Twelve of us." He punctuates.

"Just keep your voice down, 'kay? Carly's on a rampage today."

It's a moment of relief before Tune pulls him back to the source, back to the dead space they exist in, cannons in the sky and bodies in the ground. He lets something of amusement flash across his face, a quick breath out of his nose, sadness carved into his gaze and in the way his brow furrows and then relaxes. "Yeah, I saw." He starts, thinking of red and black and fear. "-and heard." Three cannons in the sky.

He thinks back to the way he'd struggled to say more than a few words throughout their entire time in the Training Center. "Being quiet. I'm good at that."

His weapon burns his palm now as he holds it, searing his skin and reminding him of the expectations pressed into their shoulders. Heartbeat slamming in chest he finds his defiance, pulls the bandages he'd swiped on his way out of the Cornucopia, hand shaking and heart following suit. "Tune, I know we aren't allies-" He doesn't even know if they're friends, doesn't even know if that matters.

"But would you mind helpin' me out here?" He points a wavering thumb towards the wound ins his back, still spitting out red and venom, blood loss beginning to crawl up his spine and into the dizziness piercing his skull.

"In a second I think I'm gonna start seeing two of you." He says quietly, a whisper, stone-faced delivery betraying the playful tone. "And I don't know if that'd be good for either of us."